Qualified inquiries
Old site (estimated)
3–4 / quarter
Projected after launch
8–12 / quarter
Tighter qualification language plus a higher intent-of-fit form filter both reduce noise and raise the perceived seriousness of the studio.
01
The Brief
Vellum Studio came to us with a one-line brief: "we're being shortlisted for international hospitality work but we keep losing the deals at the website check." They had been featured in Visitwice in the previous year, had a 12,000-follower Instagram, and a Squarespace site with a five-image hero carousel and a contact form that auto-replied with “Thanks for getting in touch!”
The constraints: six weeks to delivery, a single founder-led firm with no existing brand guidelines beyond the wordmark, a content library of around 800 unedited photographs from past projects, and a hard requirement that the new site work for a buyer who first encounters Vellum on Instagram and clicks through expecting either disappointment or arrival.
Disappointment was the default. Arrival was what we needed to build.
02
The Insight
“Hospitality buyers don't read your portfolio. They scan it for one thing — evidence that you understand restraint.”
The portfolio of an interior studio that wants hospitality work has to feel like the bar of a hotel they'd actually book — not like a gallery of “look what we can do.” Most studio sites fail this test in their first viewport. Eight images. Four colours. Three font weights. Two CTAs. Vellum's old site did all of it.
The redesign's central decision: lead with a single image, hold it for four seconds before any motion, let the visitor's eye settle, then begin. The first scroll reveals one project. The second reveals a single line of text. The third reveals nothing — it's whitespace.
By the fourth scroll, the visitor has been trained to slow down, and the studio has demonstrated, before any words, that they understand pace.
03
The Design System
Typography
Tiempos Headline + Inter.
Display · Tiempos Headline
A studio that builds for the next thirty years.
Body · Inter
Residential interiors and selected hospitality work. Cape Town, Constantia, Bantry Bay, Camps Bay. Currently taking commissions from late 2026. Studio led by Mira Loots since 2019.
Palette
Bone, clay, slate, ink, rust.
Bone
#F2EDE2
Clay
#8B5A3C
Slate
#52524A
Ink
#1A1A1A
Rust
#B5462E
Motion
Three rules. Nothing more.
i
Image reveal mask
Images unfold from below over one second. Slow enough to feel considered, fast enough to read as intentional.
ii
Line stagger
Headlines reveal line-by-line, eighty-millisecond stagger. Used on heroes only.
iii
Cinematic cut
Section transitions cut to brief darkness — only between project pages, never on the homepage.
Photography Direction
The library, re-graded.
04
The Build
Six hero moments from the build. Each captioned in one sentence — no walls of screenshots. The full prototype is one click away.
05
Projected Outcomes
Framed as projections, not promises. Reasoning included for every number — without it, these would be agency theatre.
Inquiry → call conversion
Old site (estimated)
~30%
Projected after launch
50–65%
The audit-call framing removes the power asymmetry of "applying" to a studio. Inquirers self-select before they reach the form.
Avg. project value (site-sourced)
Old site (estimated)
R600K – R900K
Projected after launch
R1.4M – R3.5M
Repositioning the homepage's language from "all residential" to "R500K+ whole-home commissions" filters lower-value inquiries before they enter the funnel.
06 · Next step
Want this for your studio?
Vellum is a concept. Yours wouldn't be. Book a thirty-minute discovery call and tell me what you'd build if it could be anything.
Book a discovery callThirty minutes · No pitch · Reviewed personally
The rest of the work
Client builds, shipped.